


To Watership Down

by spoke



Category: Richard Adams - Watership Down
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:29:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/pseuds/spoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I would like to thank the lovely for beta-ing and general hand-holding while I panicked during the last few days before Yuletide. That was scary! @.@</p>
    </blockquote>





	To Watership Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolf_cat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wolf_cat).



> I would like to thank the lovely for beta-ing and general hand-holding while I panicked during the last few days before Yuletide. That was scary! @.@

 

 

The barn had seemed comfortable enough, and it was at least warm with all the rabbits sleeping close together. When they had finally made their way through the deep and owl-haunted woods, it had seemed a blessing. They couldn't have kept going for much longer. None of them liked the idea of trying to spend the night in the open, even with the limited shelter of the trees. So they made their way inside, and found that it was quite completely abandoned, having only the faintest traces of man's smell. Much stronger were the slightly musty, clean smell of the straw itself and the old wood of the barn. Everyone had given in to the need for sleep and made themselves at home among the straw, except Bigwig.

His wounds hurt and his nerves were on edge. The straw rustled every time someone moved in his sleep. There was a slight wind outside bringing all sorts of noises to his attention. He was more than a little irritated with himself. He knew he still smelled of blood from the damned snare, and he was sure any passing elil could follow that smell straight to him. But he hadn't been able to get completely clean, in spite of keeping at it as best he could every time they made a stop. Silver and the others had done their best to help him, but in spite of all their efforts he'd remained a mess.

Splashing through the brooks had done more to get the blood off than anything else, but he didn't think he'd have been up to swimming.

So instead it looked like he was going to spend the night chasing his thoughts in circles like a cat after its tail. Growling slightly at himself, he tried to settle more comfortably on the straw. If he couldn't sleep, he ought to be thinking about something else. Something positive, maybe. In spite of all the dangers they'd gone through, none of them had stopped running, and that was good. That was a lot of hard work they'd done, mostly between himself and Hazel. He lifted his head slightly to look across Fiver, where Hazel lay facing the door in case of a man coming. Normally he would have pointed out that it didn't do any good for Hazel to be facing the door if he was asleep when it opened. But when he opened his mouth to say it, he found he didn't have the heart for it. He'd been having that problem all day: wanting to properly chew someone out and failing. He'd put it down to exhaustion at first, but when Hazel stopped him from chewing Strawberry out it felt different.

It made him think of biting Hawkbit in the heather after being asked who was Chief Rabbit. He had come along on this journey partly because he did believe Fiver's warning, but also with the general idea that he'd end up Chief Rabbit of a new warren. Except Hazel had taken charge right from the start, and every time he thought he'd gotten the lead Hazel had somehow come out ahead. It would have been simpler if he didn't like Hazel, or if he'd been no good. But it had turned out he was, never putting the others' lives at risk when he could risk his own. He got on well with everyone and saw to it that they got on well with each other. And there was no way they were going to end up fighting it out between them, even if he was bigger and the better fighter.

So he found himself facing the idea that Hazel was the leader, and he suspected it was down to his own stubborn pride that it hadn't been settled any sooner. In normal circumstances, in an established warren, it might have turned out differently. But here they were collapsed in a barn in strange country, because it was better than being out in the woods with the elil of a strange country, and he couldn't say that he could have gotten them all here alive.

Quite aside from which, he remembered hearing Hazel beside him in the snare, and he had no doubt who had gotten the others moving on his behalf.

He had just begun to speculate what kind of an Owsla Hazel would set up when he felt himself start. A scratching noise completely different from the one the straw made... and he recognized that smell from farm raids at the old warren. "Hazel! Hazel, wake up!" He moved over Fiver to nose Hazel, who woke almost as soon as he'd pushed him and a good thing. The nasty scratching noise was getting closer by the second. He could see that Hazel smelled the rats too, so he turned to get Silver and found Buckthorn already waking up.

He could hear Hazel waking the others behind him as he turned with Silver and Buckthorn to face the first of the chittering rats. "Use your claws, but try to keep low to the ground. They're smaller than we are and they'll try to get under you. Put your ears back too, they'll bite anything," he instructed, voice low and tense as he listened to the others waking and moving out of the barn. He tried to move in to help them, but felt the wounds from the snare pulling as soon as he turned his head to close on one of the rats. Being unable to follow his own instructions properly, he was reduced to helping as best he could by knocking them aside to let the other two at them. He knew Silver at least had the general idea from having been in the Sandleford Owsla, but Buckthorn surprised him. He knocked a rat clean off the straw, and they heard it hit the ground with a dull thud followed by angry squealing. He might have just made it angry and he was certainly off his guard when the next rat jumped him, but it had been a good move nonetheless. Silver countered by biting the rat on the tail and bodily pulling it off Buckthorn, and by then they realized they were all outside and could safely run for it.

If he'd been at all up to his usual speed, he'd have turned around to fight the damned rats.

The rest of the journey passed in an increasing blur, though the gray bird had been interesting in the way elil sometimes were. He was fairly certain it was elil, even if it didn't eat rabbits; and none of them were inclined to take the chance of going near it. But then the ducks had started putting up a racket, and they'd gone on the move again. Through the field and under Fiver's iron tree, until at last they sat beneath the down and wondered what they were going to do with a barren slope filling the sky in front of them. There wasn't a trace of cover, which didn't seem to concern Fiver in the least. At least Hazel was properly worried by it, and offered to climb to the top for them first.

By now he was pleased to notice that in spite of Hazel's insistence on going it alone, the others had begun to have a proper idea of his worth and didn't want him to. Even if the arguing over who got to risk his neck with Hazel was a little stupid, he would have offered himself if he hadn't noticed Silver looking at him and scuffing slightly. So he settled in with the others, keeping himself and Silver on watch for any elil that might come upon them while Hazel, Dandelion, and Hawkbit went to the top.

They had made it this far, at least. All the way to Fiver's hills without a single loss. They were tougher and stronger than they'd have ever been while staying at the old warren. If they could just get somewhere safe enough to sleep properly, they could sort out all the rest of their problems later. Like getting the rest of the blood off, so he wouldn't keep starting at every likely noise. Never mind Buckthorn's bleeding from the rat-bite.

The overall strangeness of the place wasn't helping, either. The evening light was waning, and every time they started they ended up a little closer to the trees. The backward drift of their motion had just started him worrying. What if they slipped back so far Hazel and the others couldn't find them when they got back? Then Dandelion came bounding down the hill to tell them Hawkbit had found some abandoned holes. They all began their slow climb up, which was less tedious and frightening than it could have been because Dandelion was enthusing about the view from the top of the hills and the convenience of the holes. No doubt at all that was a good sign, though Bigwig was as exhausted beyond properly caring as the rest of them. He wanted to see where Hazel had gotten to, but ended up following Silver down one of the holes and lying down at the first comfortable spot.

He never remembered falling asleep. His only clear thought came when he woke at some point before morning, feeling Silver at work getting the blood off - and that was the thought that whatever tomorrow brought, Hazel would just have to see.

 


End file.
